


you and me see how we are

by queenofchildren



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Ficlet Collection, Fluff, Romance, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-03
Updated: 2017-02-24
Packaged: 2018-05-04 18:58:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 14,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5344970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenofchildren/pseuds/queenofchildren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of short, mostly sweet ficlets first posted on tumblr. Warning: Fluff. Possibly more fluff than is altogether healthy. (And a little bit of angst, occasionally.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_Prompt: “I’m a museum night guard and just found you sleeping curled up in the stone-age settlement exhibition.“_

 

Working as a museum night guard is not a bad job, per se. It’s just mind-numbingly boring, even for a history postgrad who may or may not have fantasized about getting accidentally locked in overnight at this very museum when he was a kid. But Bellamy’s been doing this job for almost two years now, he knows every word on the plaques and the catalogues by heart, and he could draw the layout of the entire museum and every one of its displays from memory. (If he could draw, that is.) But it’s still better than the day shift he started out with, where he basically had to stand on his feet for eight hours straight and stare at the same wall. (He still hates the Industrial Revolution room with a passion.) At night, he only has to hunker down in front of the TV screens in the guard room, keep an eye on the feed from the CCTV cameras above the doors, and make the rounds through the premises once an hour.   

Which is exactly what he’s been doing on this cold, stormy November night, glad that the museum’s central heating system keeps the temperature steadily mild even at night, when he stumbles across her in the new palaeolithic exhibition. It’s their newest and coolest exhibition, and it features a walk-through reconstruction of the Lascaux caves with their beautiful, intricate cave paintings. What it does not feature is a sleeping woman, so at first he thinks he dozed off at his desk and this is just a weird dream. It’s not that he hasn’t dreamed about museums or pretty blonde women before, but the two elements usually show up in wildly different contexts. 

But a quick, painful pinch to the tender underside of his arm reassures him that he’s not dreaming at all, which means the girl (she can’t be older than him, really) sprawled out on a bench underneath the biggest and most detailed section of cave paintings is real. That doesn’t explain where she came from though – he did not see her on his first tour of the building, nor was there any movement by the doors – or why she’s here.  

“Hey!” He calls out, unable to come up with anything else, and is soundly ignored. He would be worried that she’s unconscious or dead if it weren’t for the soft but unmistakeable sound of snoring.  She’s so out of it that she doesn’t even wake up when the sketch block she’d been holding slowly slips through her slack fingers and clatters to the floor. 

He calls out again, again without receiving a response, before he carefully steps closer and gives her shoulder a nudge, taser ready in his other hand. He’s pretty sure he could take her, if need be, but she might be the kind of crazy that goes together with freakish strength, so he won’t take his chances. 

At least now he finally gets through to her: she stirs and, after a second, more insistent nudge, opens her eyes. She blinks confusedly before bolting upright with a panicked look on her face. 

“Shit, what time is it? Is it morning already?” Then she looks at him and blinks once more. “You’re not Raven.”

Before he can confirm the accuracy of that statement, she looks around, appearing more and more confused by the second. 

“Where the hell am I?”

“In the Lascaux exhibition of the Human History Museum.”

For a few long moments she just stares at him, before understanding dawns.

“Oh.” Then, with a look of horror creeping onto her expressive face: “Oh God, I fell asleep at the museum? What time is it?”

“A quarter past ten.”

Panic sets in again as she looks around the darkened cave-setting. “In the evening, right?”

“Yes, in the evening. Are you high?” That honestly seems like the most rational explanation for this whole situation - junkies from the nearby station sometimes wander in here in search of a warm place to sleep. Although she doesn’t look like a junkie, really.

“Well, I was high on caffeine before, but clearly, that has worn off.”

“Clearly.”

He’s honestly not sure how to deal with this strange girl, who now starts gathering up her sketch block and the sticks of chalk scattered around her. Bellamy watches her bemusedly until he remembers what he really should ask her. 

“How did you get in here?”

“Through the front door. I bought a ticket and everything.” She points to the visitor sticker on her chest, as if that somehow explained her presence here. (It does not, but it does draw his attention to the fact that she has a nicely-shaped… chest area.)

He tears his eyes off the little sticker on her flannel-clad chest and focuses on the topic at hand once more. “Alright, but why are you still here? We closed two hours ago.”

“Ah, yes. Well…” her eyes dart around the small space for a moment before drifting back to him once more. “I hid in the bathroom and let myself get locked in.”

Well. At least she didn’t try to bullshit him. He hopes that means the rest of her rambling explanation is true as well.

“The thing is, I really, really needed to see this exhibit – I have to do a paper on upper paleolithic art for my art history class, and the professor said I should absolutely visit the exhibit to get a feel for the paintings as they are presented in their original surroundings, and that he expects me to hand in some sketches of the cave with the paper. But I couldn’t get here earlier because my boss made me work overtime today, and I can’t come back tomorrow because I have a test at the end of the week and I need to get this paper out of the way beforehand. So when I realized I wouldn’t have enough time to finish my sketches today, I panicked and hid in the bathroom. And when everyone was gone and you’d finished your first round, I came out and laid down, because the paintings on the ceiling are the best ones and I wanted to get a good look on them. And then I must have fallen asleep.”

The paintings on the ceiling really are the best ones, Bellamy knows, and it may be the fact that she has noticed this that appeases him. He clips the taser back into its place on his belt and asks:

“What are you studying?”

“I’m in med school.” The answer comes almost automatically, and when he raises his eyebrows questioningly, she laughs. “But I’m taking classes in art history on the side. It’s a compromise.”

“Between?”

“Me and my Mom. She pays my tuition fees if I give med school a chance, I’m trying medicine as long as I don’t have to give up art altogether. So far, it’s been working out pretty well.”

“Obviously.” He can’t keep the sarcasm from his voice – if falling asleep at museums is her definition of things working out well, he does not want to know what she’d consider a crisis. 

Then he realizes that her academic choices have absolutely nothing to do with how she got in here – or what he’s supposed to do with her now. 

“You know I have to hand you over to the police for this? I mean, you didn’t do any harm, but you’re still trespassing.”

“What? But I didn’t even touch anything. Can’t you just… let it slide? I just need a little more time with those bisons up there. I swear I won’t move an inch from this spot, and I’ll sneak out before anyone can notice anything.”

“You can’t sneak out. There are cameras and motion sensors on every exit. Once I lock myself in, no one goes in or out without triggering the alarm.”

She goes pale at his words, but she still looks scarily determined. 

“I’ll wait until the museum reopens then; get back into the bathroom and hold out until enough other visitors have arrived for me to sneak out with them.” It shouldn’t sound like a plan that could work, but after all, it worked once before. The guards from the day shift are supposed to do a sweep of every room before handing the keys over to him, to make sure that no one is hiding anywhere.  But clearly, somebody forgot about the bathroom. 

Bellamy is still, rather irrationally, thinking about it when she steps closer, puts one small, cold hand on his crossed arms and says: “Please. This is super important for my grade.”

He should be used to it by now, seeing as he keeps getting defeated like this by his sister on a regular basis. He just hadn’t expected for anyone else to be able to get to him like Octavia. But now there’s art history girl, looking desperate and earnest and yet somehow like she’s willing to physically fight him on this, and he finds himself nodding and mumbling “One hour!” before he knows what’s happening to him. 

So she stays, and as it turns out, it’s actually pretty nice to have her here. Bellamy stays right by her side to prevent any mischief just in case she was lying about her plans here. But all she does is sketch, her fingers flying over the pages of the sketch block until they’re stained with the colour of her pastel chalks, red and brown and black and ochre. It’s fascinating to watch her, completely engrossed in her work, teeth teasing at her lips when she concentrates on a particularly fine detail, one hand occasionally reaching up to push a stray strand of hair behind her ear and smearing chalk on her cheek in the process. 

She sticks to his time limit exactly, putting down chalk and paper just as he’s about to remind her that he needs to start another round of the building. 

“Done. Thank you for letting me do this; you’re an actual angel. Now, let’s get back to guarding this museum.”

She falls into step beside him like it’s the most natural thing in the world, looking around seriously as if it’s her responsibility to make sure nothing happens to the valuable artifacts in here, and not his. It’s quite endearing, actually, not to mention it’s nice to have someone by his side for once. It can get a little lonely here sometimes, and it’s not like he has anyone waiting for him at home. Since Octavia moved out, the only one who stays over sometimes is Miller, and then they mostly play videogames in silence. 

Clarke, as she introduces herself at some point, is anything but silent – she’s a regular chatterbox, asking questions about the displays and providing her own insights on the artistic elements. And maybe he should be a little annoyed that she treats this like a private guided tour of the museum, but to be honest, it’s fun to be allowed to finally show that he knows more about this place than just the floor plans and emergency exits. (And, if he’s perfectly honest, it gives him a slight thrill when he manages to say something that impresses her and she turns those wide blue eyes on him again.) So he does his best to make history come alive for her, taking care to point out when something is particularly interesting from an art history point of view, and spicing the dry dates and facts up with little anecdotes that make her laugh. 

When they’ve made their way through all the exhibits, they return to the guard room and he shares his coffee and sandwiches with her while she tells him about med school in so much detail that he loses his appetite and she promptly snatches his half-eaten sandwich too. He wonders briefly if she did that on purpose, not sure if he should be annoyed or impressed. When Bellamy’s thermos is empty, Clarke treats them both to a round of vending-machine coffee and they continue talking about everything from his thesis to her difficulty in deciding whether she wants to be a doctor or an artist, so engrossed in their conversation that they don’t even notice when the sun rises outside and footsteps echo down the museum hallway. By the time the door to their cozy little cave opens, it’s too late for Clarke to try and hide from the curious gaze of his colleague from the day shift. 

They’re in luck, however: The first person in today is John Murphy, and Bellamy is pretty sure he won’t give a shit about what anyone gets up to here, so his silence can probably be bought with a few beers. Nonetheless, his heart stops for a moment when Murphy stops in the doorway, looks from Bellamy to Clarke and back and then smirks.

“Damn Blake, you brought your girlfriend? I can’t decide if that’s super smooth or pathetically dorky.”

At the word “girlfriend” Bellamy blushes so hard he figures he’d definitely fall on the dorky end of the scale right now. But before he can save face with an aloof answer, Clarke pipes up:

“Actually, I’ve always dreamed of being locked into a museum for a night, so I’d definitely say smooth.”

Murphy looks for a moment as if he’s thinking of something scathing to say, then he shrugs and steps inside, closing the door behind him just before the cleaning lady outside can spot them. Bellamy, meanwhile, is still completely stupefied, staring at Clarke as she winks at him and thinking only one thing: He’s going to marry that woman.

For now, however, he only helps her get out of the museum as soon as it opens, musters all his courage and asks if he can give her his phone number, in case she ever wants another private tour of the museum or some more time alone at Lascaux. It’s probably not a very smooth move, but Clarke laughs and puts his number in her phone anyway. When she hasn’t called almost a week later, however, he’s about to write her off - until he ends his shift to find her standing outside the museum and holding out a cup of coffee for him. 

 


	2. Chapter 2

_Written for a prompt from Rashaka: "You're bored, I'm bored, I could eat you out if you wanted... you know like a friend." (Not as NSFW as it sounds.)_

 

It’s one of those improbably long, boring weekends that make you almost wish for it to be Monday and Clarke and Bellamy are slumped on her bed, watching stand-up comedy on youtube with glazed-over eyes.

“This guy is terrible,” Clarke comments while lazily fishing the last few gummy worms out of the almost empty bag between them.

Bellamy only grunts in response but makes no attempt to look for something better. The laptop, perched on her desk chair before the bed, is out of their immediate reach, and both of them are too lazy to even lift a hand, let alone actually sit up. They’ve shared most of a family-sized pizza and a good portion of a box of wine and have both long since reached sloth-mode.

Listening to yet another clichéd joke, Clarke wishes fervently that they’d made any plans for tonight. But all their friends have decided to leave town this very weekend, no doubt to have the time of their lives somewhere else, and the only party happening nearby sounds super lame. So here they are, and since they could not decide if they should watch  _Turn_  (Bellamy’s current obsession) or rewatch  _House of Cards_  (even though Clarke has already watched all episodes twice), the shitty comedian is their attempt to compromise. Which, clearly, was a terrible mistake.

“I’m so boooored.” The idea was to scream her frustration at the heavens, or rather, at the flaky ceiling of her shabby little apartment, but it comes out sounding more like a whiny kid.

“I could eat you out if you wanted.”

“What?”

“You know, like a friend.”

Clarke somehow snaps out of sloth-mode to turn her head to look at him, not entirely sure she heard him right.

“Is this a joke?”

Her mind is still trying to come to terms with what he just said while her body’s already busy going into overdrive, her heart speeding up and her skin tingling where her arm is pressed against his, her eyes glued to his until he abruptly looks away.

Before she can figure out what she wants his answer to be, his face splits into a grin.

“Yeah. You should have seen your face.”

She laughs, but it’s shaky and a little reluctant because it was somehow incredibly easy to imagine him turning his joking suggestion into reality, settling in between her legs to let his hands and his lips slowly slide down her body, deftly removing her oversized shirt and comfy sweatpants in the process. He’d pause at that point to look up at her, letting her anticipation build because there’s nothing Bellamy loves more than teasing her, but when he’d finally remove her panties and get to it, it would probably not take much for her to…

She stops herself at this point because she can feel her face burning and he’s watching her and this is  _dangerous_. They’ve been best friends for years now, and while she may have had a teeny tiny crush on him for a bit when they first met, she has long since banished such thoughts from her mind.

“That’s just the wine talking.”

“It probably is,” Bellamy agrees, not knowing that she said it more for her own benefit than his. After all, a lot of bad decisions have started like this, with old friends and too much alcohol and bad TV. She’s not going to make the same mistake and risk driving away her best friend. Not with her track record when it comes to relationships.

He sits up abruptly to pull the laptop closer. “Alright, you’re getting your way –  _House of Cards_  it is. But only one season, maximum.”

She’s still a little unsettled, less by his joke than by her reaction, but he’s clearly offering her an olive branch which means he must think he offended her, and he didn’t. She’s not offended, she’s… not quite sure what she is, actually, other than drunk and getting distracted by the sight of his biceps bulging as he puts the laptop back in its place.

But she doesn’t want her best friend to think he offended her with a stupid joke just because she can’t control her thoughts around him.

So she nods, leans back against the wall and pats the bed beside her to signal for him to settle in next to her again.

Less than one episode in, she’s too caught up in the intrigue to think about it much more, and when she snuggles into him almost out of habit and he drapes his arm around her shoulder, she tells herself to enjoy what they have instad of daydreaming about what they could have.

* * *

Clarke wakes up the next morning with a faint headache and no one with her except for Netflix asking her if she’s still watching. She’s tucked into bed though and the empty wine glasses on her nightstand are gone, replaced by a glass of water which Clarke drinks as she mentally goes over the events of last night – Bellamy was here, they ate a lot of pizza, drank a lot of wine, watched TV, and he must have left some time after she fell asleep, which happens embarrassingly often. So far, it all sounds like a pretty regular Saturday evening for them, except something was different last night…

When she remembers what it was, she almost drops the half-empty glass. While it’s perfectly ordinary for them to watch TV until one of them (usually Clarke) falls asleep, it is definitely out of the ordinary for him to suggest they have sex – or for her to actually consider it.

Clarke jumps to her feet, ignoring the headache in favour of agitated pacing. In the light of day, Bellamy’s little joke doesn’t just seem a little weird, it seems downright out of character. Unless… unless it wasn’t a joke.

But if it wasn’t -

She doesn’t reach the end of that train of thought before she starts remembering a lot of other things that were a little strange lately, like the fact that Octavia mostly just rolls her eyes whenever she sees them interact and mumbles things about “blind idiots”, and that Raven not only wished them both a fun weekend when she left yesterday afternoon but also told Clarke to keep the fun out of the communal spaces of their shared apartment, which she had found rather confusing at the time. And then there’s Bellamy himself, who has asked her on a lot of outings without the others recently, who accompanied her to her mother’s fancy dinner party when she didn’t want to go alone and told her she looked “beautiful” with a weird look on his face when he saw her in her dress; and who just generally has a tendency to look at her in a way that makes it really, really hard to keep her cool when he starts joking about eating her out.

And suddenly all the pieces fall into place.

Without thinking any further, Clarke grabs her phone and calls Bellamy, heart hammering in her chest. She feels a little nauseous as she waits for him to pick up, wondering if that’s just the hangover talking or if she’s actually  _nervous_. The idea that she might be nervous about Bellamy of all people irritates her, so when he answers the phone with a sort of grunting noise, she skips the introductions and jumps straight to the interrogation.

“It wasn’t a joke!“

Her indignant exclamation prompts a pained groan from him.

“Dammit Clarke, are you trying to make my head explode? Lower your voice!”

“You’re still hungover?”

“Well, not all of us have your superhuman alcohol tolerance. Plus, as you like to point out, I’m practically ancient.”

“And a huge nerd who never has fun,” Clarke adds, just to be comprehensive on his list of faults.

Which actually does not include anything more than these three bullet points:

  * low alcohol tolerance


  * hermit tendencies


  * huge nerd (and if she’s perfectly honest, she kind of likes that about him, because when they play “how long into this period drama before Bellamy loses his shit and starts ranting about historical inaccuracy?”, he never makes it more than twenty minutes and it’s fun to watch him get progressively more riled up.)



But that’s the whole list. Except now, Clarke thinks, she’s definitely going to have to add another bullet point:

  * cannot spit it out that he likes his best friend and tries to seduce her by offering oral sex and then pretending it was a joke.



Which, in her book, is much much worse. She could have had mindblowing sex last night (she just  _knows_  it would have been mindblowing), and he blew it by being a gigantic idiot.

“It wasn’t a joke!” She repeats once more, less loud but more indignant now. “Why the hell did you act like it was a joke?”

He’s silent for an unsettlingly long amount of time, and she’s starting to worry that he doesn’t even remember the whole thing. But when he finally does reply, it quickly becomes clear that he knows exactly what she’s talking about.

“Because the moment I said it you looked like I had suggested ritually sacrificing fluffy animals, or something.”

“I was in shock.”

“Which kind of proves my point, doesn’t it?” He sighs. “Look, Clarke, you shouldn’t have been  _that_ shocked. I’m not a subtle person, so I figured if you hadn’t noticed it by now, maybe you didn’t  _want_  to notice it.”

“I was scared I was imagining it! You should have been even  _less_  subtle!”

“I didn’t want to put you on the spot. I never even meant to say that last night, it just…slipped out. You look cute in your stupid flowery sweatpants, okay?”

At this point, Clarke couldn’t have replied if she wanted to, too stunned by this development. So he thinks she looks cute? His mind went from  _cute_  to  _oral sex_? 

When she continues to stay silent, there’s another sigh and Clarke can just imagine him running his hand through his messy hair right now.  

“Can we maybe not talk about this over the phone?”

The part of her that tries to keep her distance, that has been burned before and has no intention of being burned again, holds onto her phone so tightly one of her knuckles crack.

But the part of her that remembers the way she felt just before she must have fallen asleep last night, safe and content and a little disappointed about his lack of follow-through on the sex, decides that if there ever was a right moment to take a risk, it’s now.

“That depends… does last night’s offer still stand?”

Now it’s his turn to stay silent for much too long, causing Clarke’s stomach to clench in fear, and if she was there, she would elbow him in the ribs to get him to  _just reply already_.

And then he does and the weekend suddenly goes from mind-numbingly boring to possibly the best weekend of her life.

“Yeah, the offer still stands.”

“I’m coming over.”

 


	3. The Socratic Paradox of Loving Bellamy Blake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was expecting to hate all new love interests for Bellamy or Clarke, but surprisingly, I don’t hate Gina (or Nylah). She seems very sweet and very chill and the relationship is probably doomed, so I wrote a little ficlet for her around the question of how much she knows of Clarke and how important she is to Bellamy. So, although this is written from Gina's perspective about her feelings for Bellamy, I think there's still enough Bellarke-feels in there to justify putting it in here.

 

She wants to know everything about him.

She wants to ask why he’s so good at surviving and keeping other people alive and yet he acts like the souls of millions are recorded in his ledger. She wants to know about the dropship and the Mountain and how it came about that he came back almost two weeks after leaving for Tondisi wearing a guard’s uniform he didn’t get from the Ark and a look on his face like the world just collapsed around him.

She wants to know why he spends every other night for a month after that at the bar where she’s working nights, drinking until he either passes out or one of his friends drag him off. But she doesn’t dare to ask, not even after she gathers the courage to cut him off one night only for him to start yelling at her until she grabs the guard’s baton stashed under the bar and threatens to stun him if he doesn’t leave quietly. Not even when he returns three days later with an actual pelt as an apology gift. Not even after the first time he spends the night in her room, or after the twentieth.

She finds out some of it: through whispers and rumours and conversations she overhears at the bar between survivors of the war against the Mountain or others who are in the know about what happened. Raven tells her a little bit, but Raven also looks strangely worried the first time she sees them kissing and gets very tight-lipped about certain parts of the story.

She decides at some point that she doesn’t want to know everything after all, especially not when it comes to the name Raven mentions less than any other names and Bellamy never; the name of the dead girl who saved them all. She has to be dead, after three months out there, even if the rumours of her that are still going around the camp seem determined to turn her into some kind of invincible mythical creature.

She doesn’t really care either way, but she does care what she sees on Bellamy’s face when someone says _her_ name, what his body language says despite his stoic silence:

“ _She’s not dead,”_ says the flash in his eyes, daring anyone to defy him.

“ _But she left me behind,”_ growls his angrily clenched jaw.

“ _She’ll return,”_ say his trembling hands and _“will she?”_ his slumped shoulders.

So she doesn’t ask about any of those things, but she still needs to know _something_ that tells her that this isn’t pointless, that she isn’t just setting herself up for heartbreak and disappointment, borrowing time with someone who isn’t really hers. She asks about everything else instead, things from the time before Earth, and she learns some useful tidbits: She finds out he loves Greek mythology and Roman history and gifts him a copy of the Iliad which he seems to like. She finds out he still carries resentment for the Ark’s ruling class but he fights for them anyway, to protect his people, and she’s not sure if that revelation is a good thing or not because it makes her fall in love with him even more. She hears enough about his sister to know not to flinch back from Octavia’s angry glare when he officially introduces them – Octavia may hate everyone who was free back on the Ark, but Bellamy loves Octavia and she’s willing to do what it takes to get in his sister’s good books.

Eventually, there are almost as many things she knows about him as things she doesn’t know, and maybe that will be enough.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Socratic Paradox, according to Wikipedia, refers to the alleged Socrates-quote “I know that I know nothing.” The term also refers to two other Socratic doctrines, but I have chosen to ignore these details because this is a one-page drabble and I just wanted the title to refer to this quote somehow.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was another tumblr prompt: "I'm an unethical social scientist who joined this UFO believers group incognito pretendin to be into it but really I'm just trying to write a book... wait are you in the exact same situation?"  
> I altered it a little bit so Clarke is an investigative journalist and the club is actually a cult, but here it is.

 

When Octavia Blake calls Clarke’s office at the _Daily Post_ eleven months after she’s been reported missing, Clarke knows that something big is going to happen. What she _doesn’t_ know is that this one phone call will set in motion a chain of events that will somehow end with her teaming up with the most irritating man she’s ever met to rescue and adopt a bunch of runaway cult victims - but that’s life for you.

At first it sounded too good to be true. She’d been chasing this dangerous cult disguised as a crazy but harmless club for UFO conspiracy theorists for almost a year when a young female voice on the other end of the phone promised her the ultimate scoop: She’d help Clarke infiltrate the organisation and provide her with top-secret material she can use for an in-depth article about how exactly the Wallaces managed to lure in over a hundred people, isolate them from their friends and families and practically imprison them in their reclusive headquarters. Their victims range from up-and-coming film stars and musicians to virtual nobodies, but despite their increasingly high profile, the public knows very little about how exactly they manage to keep their followers so enthralled.

While the “Church of the Celestial Calling” may seem harmless due to their UFO-babble, Clarke knows from experience that they’re anything but. She’s determined to put an end to their machinations, partly because public interest in the organisation has risen and news outlets are clamouring to be the first with an exclusive story, and partly because her childhood best friend ended up in their claws and barely made it out. What followed was financial ruin and months of stalking, death threats and a smear-campaign that ended Wells’ legal career, and Clarke is more determined than ever to make those fuckers pay for what they did to her friend.

And so, a week after Octavia’s call, Clarke is walking through the tall gate to the cult’s headquarters to attend a very exclusive recruting event and pretend to be interested in Dante Wallace’s esoteric mumbo-jumbo. Clarke has faced similar situations before – this isn’t her first investigative story, after all – but never have the stakes been so high, or so personal. She didn’t dare tell Wells what she’s doing, unwilling to remind him of the worst time of his life. But Raven is waiting in the car outside, ready to get her out by force if necessary, and her editor-in-chief Indra has an excellent legal department and a written statement wherein Clarke makes it clear that she’s infiltrating the potentially criminal organisation and if she doesn’t return within 24 hours, it means she’s being held against her will. She has no idea if the police will accept the statement as grounds for coming after her should someone try to keep her here, but she doesn’t have much else to protect her. She’s going to have to trust her inside woman, and strangely enough, she does.

On the phone, Octavia sounded urgent but sane and level-headed, and all the information she gave Clarke was clearly intended to keep her safe as well as give her ammunition. Clarke now has a detailed description of the headquarters and all its exits, and all she needs to do is somehow manage to slip away during the meeting to meet up with Octavia, who will hand over the accumulated dirt she gathered on the organisation over the past months. And if there’s anything else Clarke needed to convince her that she can trust the other woman, it’s the tone of her voice when she explains that she joined the cult for personal reasons too, to get out her ex-boyfriend who had fallen prey to them after a brief stint with drugs made him vulnerable to their scheme. She immediately recognizes the bitter rage in Octavia’s voice, and that’s when Clarke knows that this is her chance: She’s going to bring down the Wallaces.

Of course, she hadn’t planned on Bellamy Blake.

She knows something is off with the tall, dark-haired man five minutes into the recruitment event. While everyone else is hanging off Dante Wallace’s every word, listening intently to the cult founder’s ramblings, the man who went straight for one of the coveted seats near the back doors keeps glaring at Wallace with a look so full of fiery rage Clarke is surprised he doesn’t accidentally set the colourful space-themed tapestries on fire.

When he rather unsubtly sneaks out less than fifteen minutes into the meeting, Clarke sighs and follows him as unobtrusively as she can, catching up to him in the hallway when he marches straight past the restrooms and down the hall to a section of the headquarters that is clearly labelled Private.

But just as she’s followed him around the corner, Clarke is suddenly grabbed by the waist and pulled into a room, a large hand clamped over her mouth to keep her from screaming. Struggling like hell, she actually manages to land a blow to her attacker’s solar plexus that causes him to let out a pained groan and let go of her. Stumbling away from him, Clarke sents a brief mental thank-you to Raven for making her sign up for those self-defense classes - clearly, they’ve paid off.

She’s not really surprised to find that her attacker is the very same man she followed out of the room, but she is surprised to find they’re not alone – there’s a young woman in the darkened office with them. Dark-haired and fierce, Clarke easily identifies her as Octavia Blake from the photo in her missing persons file. What she can’t quite make sense of is the fact that the young woman is currently hugging Clarke’s attacker like the world is ending. Only when Clarke clears her throat indignantly do the two pull apart, but before Clarke can ask what the hell is going on, Octavia claps her hands and says:

“Good, you’re both here. Clarke, this is my brother Bellamy. Bell, Clarke’s a journalist wo’s going to help us.” She gestures from one to the other during her brief introduction, then nods energetically. “Right. Let’s get started.”

With that, she pulls a USB stick out of her jeans pocket and hands it to Clarke.

“This is all the info I could pilfer from Cage Wallace’s computer – he’s Dante’s son and he runs this whole business, especially the shady parts. Dante just comes up with the UFO crap. If there’s anything illegal we can use to nail them down, it’s in Cage’s files.”

Clarke nods and stores the stick in the little compartment she made for this purpose in the hollowed-out heel of her clunky shoes. Then her eyes flit to the dark-haired man who’s still standing silently beside Octavia, looking at the woman like she just rose from the dead.

“These files should provide you with enough info to write an article that lets the whole business go up in flames. And in case that’s not enough, I’m also providing you with witnesses – victims – who are willing to talk. You just have to help me bail them out first.” Clarke’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise, but Octavia continues, gesturing at the dark-haired man as she speaks: “That’s where Bellamy comes in. I’ll arange for all the people who want to leave to be on the same gardening shift together soon, we’ll knock out the guard and climb over the fence, and Bellamy will help us make a quick getaway. I’ll text you the time and date as soon as I’ve arranged it, and you’ll need to figure out a safe place for us all to hide out in. There’s me, Lincoln and five others. Can you handle that?”

She looks from Clarke to Bellamy, completely disregarding the fact that she hasn’t actually asked if they’re willing to do all those dangerous things with her. Then again, for Clarke, there’s no need to ask – these people need help, she’s going to help them. She’s about to say so when Octavia’s brother cuts her off.

“Screw the others,” Bellamy growls from Octavia’s side, “I came here to take you home and that’s what I’m doing, right now.”

“You can’t, Bell. I need to keep my cover up, and I need to help Lincoln and the others get out. No matter what happens after Clarke writes her article, they need to be safe.”

Bellamy looks like he wants to protest, but before he can, there are voices in the hallway and Octavia shushes them before whispering: “You need to get out, now.” She shoos them over to the window and motions for them to jump out, and the next thing she knows Clarke is landing softly in a flowerbed and stumbling to her feet.

They’ve almost made it to the driveway when the front door opens and there are footsteps on the gravel, coming ever closer to where they are, still out of sight around the corner but with nowhere to hide. And then, just as the beam of a flashlight falls on them, Bellamy pulls her against him and crushes his mouth to hers.

Clarke goes completely stiff in his arms, too shocked to even push him away, until he draws back a little to growl in her ear:

“For fuck’s sake, play along will you?”

Finally, the penny drops, and Clarke lifts her arms to his shoulders and pulls him closer, melting against his hard chest as his lips meet hers once more, softer now, and his hands slide down from her arms to her waist, holding her with a tenderness that is surprising given that he dragged her around kicking and screaming just a few minutes ago. Now he’s all gentle hands and coaxing lips and soft hair under her fingertips, and Clarke sighs and thinks bemusedly that a girl could lose herself in a kiss like this.

Not that she gets a chance to do so, as in that moment, someone starts yelling at them. Bellamy draws back and looks at her for a moment, eyes wide and dark, lips swollen, before he turns toward the approaching security guard, shielding Clarke with his body in the process.

“What the hell are you two doing here?”

Normally, Clarke is very good at making up excuses on the spot – this isn’t the first time she snuck in somewhere, after all. But normally, she doesn’t get the living daylights kissed out of her with no warning, so it’s completely understandable and very much not helpful that she’s still a little dazed, her knees feel like jello and all she can focus on is the way her lips tingle and her skin hums, so excuse her for not being a cold-blooded master spy.

Clearly, the situation has unhinged Bellamy as well, because when faced with an irate security guard, he actually beams and starts rambling:

“Have you ever met someone and you just knew they were the one? Because I have, today, and if I end up the happiest man on on earth, I owe it all to you people.” He points a finger at the man, a gesture that would be aggressive if he wasn’t grinning like a doofus. “Because if it wasn’t for this meeting, I’d have never laid eyes on this beautiful girl, and I wouldn’t have felt the energy flowing through me, telling me to get up and talk to her… and now here we are. Isn’t it wonderful?”

Clarke watches him with a trace of worry. Not only is she now apparently allied with this irresponsibly reckless man, but it turns out he’s crazy too…

Or maybe not. Because while actually hugging the bewildered security guard may be taking things a bit far, it also stuns the man enough that he doesn’t protest when Bellamy steps back, takes Clarke’s hand and pulls her towards the driveway. Twenty seconds later, they’re out the gate and he looks at her with a blazing smile that makes her heart skip a beat. She actually made it, Clarke thinks incredulously: She has the info, she has an inside woman and an outside ally, and she has a plan to save innocent people from having their lives ruined further by the cult. All in all, this has been a very successful evening.

(And then there’s the fact that, for the first time in ages, she kissed someone who made her heart race and her toes curl. But that’s very much beside the point now.)

Clarke spots Raven’s dark blue car across the street and starts heading towards it, pulling Bellamy after her by the hand.

“Come on. We need to figure out where to keep Octavia and her friends safe.”

Bellamy follows her to the car without protest, his hand closing firmly around hers. They’re in this together now.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a tiny little drabble about Clarke and Bellamy being reunited and safe, just because.

(Inspired by [this beautiful piece of Bellarke art](http://an-established-butt-dent.tumblr.com/post/138399030275/is-it-possible-for-home-to-be-a-person-and-not-a).) 

 

 

Bellamy can’t sleep. This is not in itself an extraordinary thing – he’s spent too many nights awake lately, tossing and turning, jerking out of nightmares with cold sweat drying on his skin and every muscle in his body so tense it hurts.

Tonight, however, his sleeplessness is voluntary: Clarke, he knows from the long way back to Arkadia, has not had a full night’s sleep in at least a week, and now that she has finally fallen into a deep slumber, her breathing slow and even against his skin, he’ll be damned if he lets anyone or anything tear her from that rare peaceful state. Snug against him, her head tucked under his chin, she’s holding on to him with both hands as if it weren’t enough to have her entire body lined up with his from head to toe; as if she needed to make absolutely sure he’ll still be there when she wakes up. He will be, he swears to himself, this coming morning and every morning after that if she wants him to be. They’ve been separated for too long, and have fought too hard to find their way back to each other.

Their time apart has taken its toll on him. The things he did to get her back… he’s not proud of them, but he doesn’t regret them either, and that scares him a little bit but it doesn’t exactly surprise him. Clarke brought down a mountain for him and he faced armies for her, and both of them lost a little bit of themselves in the process but they got each other back in exchange. That will be enough to make them whole again; it has to be.

Clarke tenses in his arms and her leg twitches, her heel bumping against his shin, and for a moment he’s afraid that she’s having a nightmare. But then she relaxes against him once more, her small sigh ruffling the hairs on his arm, and Bellamy presses a kiss to the top of her head and continues to keep his eyes wide open, ready to pull her to safety if her dreams turn against her.  

He won’t sleep tonight, but for the first time in months, Bellamy doesn’t mind – in fact, he can feel a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, just waiting for her to wake up.


	6. Sleep my love and peace attend thee

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a tumblr prompt fill for Rumaan: One falling asleep with their head in the other's lap.  
> Title is from a folk song/lullaby.

Clarke knows about the concept of catharsis, has been chasing it for weeks, in the wilderness and in a sweet woman’s bed and in a crumbling tower in Polis, but she had no idea how exhausting it would be to find it: So exhausting, it turns out, that by the time she and Bellam are done yelling at each other and crying and explaining and forgiving, her entire body is heavy with tiredness, her eyes are aching from the tears they shed, and there’s a soreness in her ribcage that must be an aftereffect of her breathless, hiccuping sobs.

But now, she knows on a deep, physical level what catharsis is. She’s been through the fire of accusations and excuses and guilt and forgiveness and she is finally at peace, sitting on the hard, dusty floor of a small cave with Bellamy’s head in her lap, his arms slung around her waist like he’s afraid she’ll sneak off in the middle of the night instead of watching over his sleep like she promised.

It seems that the past few hours have taken their toll on him too, because as soon as she convinced him to sleep while she takes first watch, Bellam was out like a light, while Clarke, despite her physical exhaustion, has had no trouble staying awake, both her head and her heart too full to succumb to sleep just yet.

The main conclusion she has reached in the time since silence fell around them is this: If there is anything the last weeks have shown, it’s that no matter how tough things get, they’re worse without Bellamy by her side. His loyalty, finally restored, may be fierce but it is not blind, and that is worth a hell of a lot more than any bows before the _commander of death_.

She’s not just _better_ with him by her side though, she’s happier too. His steadfast, coiled-power presence calms and grounds her, and as she traces the lines of his face with a gentle finger, trying to smooth the frown of an impending nightmare from his brow, she hopes she can do the same for him from now on.

Her gentle ministrations seem to have the desired effect, as his breathing evens out once more and the twitching muscles of his hands tighten around her one final time and then relax. Even with the victory over his demons assured, however, Clarke doesn’t quite take her hands off him, her fingertips weaving gentle paths through his messy curls and carefully loosening the tangles his nervous hands have left there in his earlier agitation.

Looking down on his peaceful form, she allows a tenderness to wash over her that she hasn’t had the time or opportunity to feel in a very long time, and her heart clenches with relief at the fact that Bellamy is  _with her_ once more; or perhaps with fear at the thought that he almost wasn’t.

Things will get better from here on out, Clarke vows to herself, and impulsively leans down to press the lightest of kisses to his temple.


	7. I’m gonna love you like I’ve never been hurt before; I’m gonna love you like I’m indestructible

Clarke realizes it on a sweltering summer day.

At least it promises to be sweltering. This early in the day, just after sunrise, it’s still pleasantly cool, and Clarke gives in to the sudden temptation and toes off her shoes and socks to set her soles down onto the dew-dampened grass. She lets the sensation shock her awake and breathes in the fresh morning air that finally, finally tastes like she always imagined it would on earth, like hope and freedom and ever-replenishing life.

It’s rare to get such a moment of peace in their bustling camp, but when a voice calls out and interrupts her moment of solitude, she finds that she doesn’t mind - not when it’s this voice.

“What are you doing?”

Clarke turns to find Bellamy standing behind her, squinting at her bare feet with a puzzled expression that, together with his sleep-mussed hair, makes him look so adorable that she can’t stop a smile from blooming on her face.

“I’m enjoying myself. You should try it.”

“I wish I could, but I’m heading out on a hunting trip in a few minutes.”

He does look genuinely regretful about this fact, and a little like he’s contemplating ripping off his boots anyway and leaving the hunting trip for another day. But of course Bellamy is dutiful as always, so she doesn’t try to talk him into shirking his responsibilities but starts walking him to the gate.

And that’s when it hits her, an impossible strike of lightning out of the clear blue sky: She loves him, more than she has ever loved anyone before, with a depth that does not allow quantification nor comparison.

The revelation makes her stumble for a moment, but other than that, it turns out nothing really happens after one is struck by lightning of this kind. Bellamy certainly doesn’t notice; he keeps moving along with determined strides as if her world didn’t just get turned upside down. Or maybe it just got straightened and has now fallen into place?

She doesn’t get around to deciding before they reach the gate where Miller is already loading weapons into the truck, a sight that sobers her up instantly. Clearly, she could not have picked a worse time for this realization; just when he’s about to drive off into who knows what kind of danger.

Of course, he goes on hunting trips all the time and hasn’t brought back anything worse than a scratch. But Clarke remembers the faces of the ones she loved before - Wells, Finn, Lexa - and their battered, bloodstained bodies, and has to fight the irrational thought that just the fact that Bellamy made it onto that cursed list amounts to a death sentence.

Before she knows what she’s doing, Clarke has thrown her arms around him and is holding on to his familiar frame for dear life, praying to every deity that might still take an interest in humanity to return him to her.

She can feel herself trembling, can hear the slight waver in her voice when she whispers hoarsely: “Stay safe.”

Bellamy looks a little dumbfounded when she draws back, and she can’t exactly blame him for being confused.

“I’ll do my best.” His voice is light and reassuring, but it takes him just a little too long to say the words, and there’s a hint of unease in his eyes that not even his cocky smile can drive off.

And then he’s jumped into the car and sped off, and Clarke is left standing by the gate, looking after him and feeling equal parts terrified and elated.

***

Bellamy accepts it after he has come closer to death than he’s been in a long time.

He has known it for much longer, of course. The fact that he loves Clarke goes back so far that he can’t quite remember a time when he didn’t, and it must have informed his decisions more than he cares to admit.

So when Clarke hugs him the way she did once before, with a fervour that says she doesn’t expect to see him again any time soon, he all but panics.

He tries to keep it together - smile and joke at her, get in he car with Nathan and act like this is just a regular morning and there’s nothing to indicate that his carefully repaired world may come crashing down around him at any moment. But clearly, he didn’t do a very good job of keeping it together, because he remembers how his thoughts were constantly punctuated by images of her face in the morning sun, by echoes of the smell of her hair when he allowed himself to bury his face in it and of the way she held on to him so tightly that for a moment he thought she would never let go (which he wouldn’t have minded in the least.)

And the next thing he remembers he’s lying in the back of the truck in excruciating pain, with a very worried-looking Nathan bent over him.

At least that part of the situation has definitely improved, he thinks as his eyes finally focus on the face hovering above him and he identifies the apparition as Clarke, somehow managing to look angry and worried and incredibly soft at the same time.

“How the hell did this happen?”

Bellamy shrugs, too proud to admit that it was sheer stupidity that allowed a freaking bear to get the jump on him.

Miller on the other hand has no such reservations.

“The idiot was distracted and didn’t pay attention, that’s how it happened.”

Bellamy glares at his friend, but Nathan just shrugs as if he didn’t just sell him out. And then the disloyal asshole just casually strolls out, leaving him alone with a very unhappy Clarke.

“Why were you distracted?”

The question is voiced softly but her face is anything but, and somehow that makes him angry, although he only understands what exactly he’s angry about when he’s already blurting it out.

“Because I thought you were going to leave again, okay? When you hugged me by the gate this morning… I thought it was to say goodbye.”

Clarke looks stricken, which is simultaneously very satisfying and incredibly painful. He doesn’t want her to be hurt; they’ve hurled enough cutting words at each other to last a lifetime. But he needs to tell her; she needs to know what it would do to him if she left. It’s hurt or be hurt at this point.

“It’s not like you haven’t done it before.”

For a moment, he’s afraid she’ll get up and storm out.

Instead, she leans forward to take his hand.

“I wasn’t saying goodbye. I’m not leaving again, Bellamy. I’ll never leave again if I can help it.” And then, after a deep breath and a nervous, convulsive squeeze of her fingers around his: “I love you.”

Silence falls after her words, interrupted by nothing but their breathing: her fast, nervous breaths and his flat, laboured ones, until he manages to croak out:

“Okay.”

Clarke’s mouth falls open in disbelief.

“Okay?! I tell you I love you and that’s your response?”

“I’m in a lot of pain right now. I don’t feel like I can come up with the kind of response this situation deserves.”

Clarke still looks a little rattled, but there’s a smile tugging at the edge of her mouth that broadens at his next words.

“At the very least I should be able to kiss you senseless.”

Clarke laughs and leans forward to press a lingering kiss to his cheek.

“Yes. That seems adequate.”

And then she crawls onto the bed next to him, intertwines their hands once more, and stays.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written as a tumblr prompt: The way you said I love you: as an apology".

 

Bellamy makes dorky jokes at inappropriate moments - the dorkier the better. That’s a fact, and everyone has rolled their eyes about it at one point or another. Everyone, that is, except for Clarke. Because by now, Clarke has figured out the reason behind the stupid jokes: he makes them to cheer people up - her, most of the time.

Which is why, when Bellamy approaches her after a particularly rough day only to slip on a puddle and go down in a magnificent show of flailing limbs, Clarke actually laughs because she thinks he’s being dorky as usual. It is only when he doesn’t immediately get up again that she gets a little worried.

Or, to be more accurate: Really fucking scared. There may not be any grounder warriors or murderous AIs around, but  Clarke still can’t quite shake the lingering fear that she’ll see yet another person she loves being harmed, tortured… killed. And love him she does, she’s known that for a long time now even if she’s never said as much, to him or anyone else. After Finn, after Lexa, she’s simply too scared to allow herself to say the words, words which should be so beautiful but have become a curse in her mind, swift and deadly.

Which makes it all the more surprising when her subconscious chooses this very moment to say them, almost as an afterthought, disguised as an apology.

Kneeling by his side, she quickly assures herself that he is unharmed. And as relief washes over her, Clarke feels a kind of childish giddiness bubbling up inside her. Now that her brief flash of panic has passed, she’s able to appreciate the ridiculousness of the situation: Bellamy is sprawled out on the ground, legs and arms akimbo; his tray has upended over him in the fall so now his hair is covered in a fine layer of oat flakes, and there’s pudding and berry sauce smeared all over his face, arms and chest which Clarke is momentarily tempted to lick off.

Instead, she laughs and laughs; laughs until tears are running down her cheeks and her sides are starting to cramp, because he’s still with her and will be as long as he can and the blood is only berry sauce.

Unfortunately, Bellamy seems less amused - the longer her little moment of levity lasts, the more his expression darkens, until eventually he growls:

“You done?”

She’s still stifling the last few peals of laughter, but Clarke nods anyway, hastening to mollify him.

“I’m sorry - I love you, but you look ridiculous.”

Time seems to slow to a halt around them, an invisible little bubble encasing them and protecting them from everyone around. Everyone in the mess hall had stared at Bellamy after his involuntary little circus act, but as soon as it was clear that he’s A) unharmed and B) in good hands with her, people’s attention has returned to their food. Over the din in the crowded hall, no one except for him even heard her breathless admission. She could take it back if she wanted to and she knows he’ll never pressure her to repeat her words.

She doesn’t. She returns his inquisitive look with a calm one of her own, then gets to her feet and holds out a hand to help him up.

“Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.”

She said the words, Clarke thinks, she might as well make sure they’re alone when he responds.

And respond he will, she’s sure of it. His gaze might be curious, a little insecure, but there’s a fire behind it that makes her heart beat faster; a possessiveness in the way he holds on to her hand a little too long after getting up; an urgency in the way he lays his palm on the small of her back to lead her outside. And as soon as they’ve exited the mess hall, he pulls her behind one of the food stores and kisses her, hard and greedy.

She should have said it much, much earlier, Clarke thinks, and then she doesn’t really think much at all anymore.

 


	9. Chapter 9

Hours after defeating ALIE Clarke is finally sleeping, for the first time in what may have been several days, and Bellamy is sitting next to her curled-up form, holding a stun baton in one hand and her small, limp hand in the other, and looking down on her with a shell-shocked expression.

Because while Clarke’s mind is hopefully in a quiet, dreamless, peaceful place, Bellamy’s is busy having a revelation.

Of course, Clarke didn’t want to take a break for something as trivial as sleep, even though taking both the chip and the flame had taken such a toll on her that she could barely stay on her feet. Bellamy had to threaten her with a stun baton – only half-jokingly – before she agreed to lie down on a pile of furs in one of the less ravaged rooms of the tower. 

He also had to promise to stay by her side and keep watch - a demand that has been running through his head non-stop ever since he closed the door behind them, shutting out the background noise of feverish planning from everyone who either escaped the chip or came to terms with what they did under its influence, and regretful wails from those who haven’t.

“Stay“, she’d said after sitting down, and though he had planned on doing exactly that anyway because he’s not letting her out his sight again, the fact that she’s willing to ask him… it means something, he thinks: The same thing it meant when she reached out her hand toward him earlier, just before Ontari’s black blood entered her bloodstream and catapulted her into the City of Light.

It means that she trusts him more than anyone else, that she needs him, relies on him to keep her safe. It means he’ll stay, whatever else happens, and fight to his very last breath to keep her safe.

It also means, he’s learning now, that when there’s no need to fight, nothing to do but sit and look at her, his mind tends to wander. Not the kind of wandering that includes very little clothes or talking, though he’d be lying if he said he didn’t occasionally have those kinds of thoughts about her too. No, today, for some reason, his mind has decided to go over the past weeks again, to replay every little painful, terrible thing that happened, only to come to a screeching halt midway down this fucked-up version of memory lane.

Because as he looks from their joined hands to her peaceful face, Bellamy finally realizes:

“I love you.“

It’s quiet, nothing more than a shaky whisper, but Clarke stirs anyway and for one blood-stopping moment Bellamy thinks she heard him. But she only sighs, tightens her grip on his hand, and keeps breathing in and out deeply, and Bellamy lets out his own sigh of relief.

Perhaps he’ll tell her, one day, when the wounds of Mount Weather and Arkadia and Polis have healed. But for now, it’s enough that he knows himself.

 


	10. Words to live for

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soo, I listened to Sleeping at Last and made myself have all the emotions about Bellarke (again), and this is what happened. Beware: extreme sappiness ahead. Oh, and the context isn’t really important, but the idea (one I’ve read in someone’s speculations about the “Clarke with radiation burns”-scene in the trailer) is that Clarke volunteers to expose herself to radiation in order to somehow help make a treatment for it. I have not worked it out one bit.

 

Clarke’s been thinking about words a lot lately: What they mean. How they’re used. What they can do.

It starts when she’s in the infirmary, bedridden for weeks after volunteering to take the heavy dose of  radiation that saves them all in the end. It’s an odd new interest, because she’s never been one for language and philosophy, for ruminations on words and the poetry they hold. She knows words as tools, utilised to precisely convey vital information or, in dire circumstances, deployed to steer other people’s actions to suit her own needs. When she wanted to _feel_ things, she always turned to painting, to images and colours. But she can’t even feed herself at first, let alone hold a pencil, and since there’s not much else to do, she has to look for entertainment within her own mind.

It helps that her brain is sluggish and slow from the medication and tends to get stuck on individual words and phrases, highlighting them for her to examine:

_Sacrifice._   _Forgiveness. Trust. Life. Loss. Pain. Healing. Love._

She relearns her own language in much the same way she’s learning Azgedasleng now that they’re allied with Roan and his people: Word for word, by following the same set of instructions: 1.) Learn a new word and its definition. 2.) Memorise it. 3.) Use it in a sentence:

_Victory stands on the back of sacrifice._

_Life should be about more than just surviving_

_I forgive you._

_You don’t ease pain. You overcome it._

And then there’s that one word her thoughts return to over and over again: _Love_. The word that, when used in a sentence, is turned into a gift from one person to the other. The word that pops into her mind when the last thing she sees before she passes out is a frantic Raven threatening to “Frankenstein her ass back to life” if she dares to die. That washes over her when she half-wakes at some point during the radiation treatment to see her mother bent over her, wringing her hands as she watches for the radiation burns to recede. And it’s the word her mind supplies, loud and clear, whenever she wakes in the middle of the night to see Bellamy sitting next to her bed, uncomfortably slumped over in a chair as he sleeps by her side instead of his bed.

Even long before she ended up here, the word has often cloaked the edges of her mind when she looked at him, has tinged her moods and steered her actions before she had even learned its true meaning. She _thought_ she knew what it meant, and perhaps she knew some of its nuances. But she’s never known it like this, has never experienced its many facets the way she’s experiencing them now. Applying the word to Bellamy makes it necessary to constantly rethink and expand and update its definition, and the vocabulary of her heart gets richer for it.

At some point, she knows she’s going to have to take the next step in the learning process: Use it in a sentence. Hand it over like a gift, like the reassurance he needs of things he shouldn’t have to doubt in the first place.

For his part, Bellamy seems to have no problem saying it, although he communicates it in actions rather than words, and it took her a while to learn to translate them. But _I love you_ shines from the way he looks at her, whether it’s mixed in with pride or relief or fear or anger. _I love you_ is what his broken posture says when she returns from Polis with the best of intentions and the worst of ideas, when she tries to exchange equal leadership for ruthless manipulation and he throws it back in her face. _I love you_ is what every fibre of his body yells when he tries to stop her from going through with the radiation trial and it takes Miller and Monty both to drag him out of the med bay.

She wants to say it back, but for her, _I love you_ has only ever meant goodbye – desperate, fearful, tearstained parting words that circumstances wrenched from her. And if there’s one person she never wants to part with, it’s him.

So she waits, holds back and tries saying the words in the same quiet manner he does; lets them slip into her smiles and into the way she squeezes his hand when he sits by her bedside and into her gentle reproach when he works too much and doesn’t rest enough.

But she doesn’t actually _say_ the words for a long, long time. Not until Arkadia’s walls have been rebuilt and their food stores replenished, until they’re sure they can handle any new threat of radiation and their grounder alliances and peace treaties have proven to hold steady. Only then, when they’re safe and _“Goodbye”_ only means _“See you soon”_ and not _“Don’t go!”_ , does she allow herself to say it.

There’s no fanfare about it, no threat looming before them when she does. She simply lets the words slip out when they’re sitting by the fireplace one night, after everyone else has gone to bed and it’s just the two of them, easy conversation and comfortable silence taking turns, his arm around her back to ward off the chill of the night as the fire slowly burns down to embers.

“I love you,” she says, clear and steady, but she can’t help the bolt of fear that shoots through her the moment the words are out, and so she closes her arms around him and holds him tight for an interminable time, irrationally scared that just saying the words out loud will mean he too will be taken from her.

He’s not. There’s no airlock door closing, no bloody knife in her hand and no stray bullet whizzing towards him. There’s nothing but the crackle of the fire and Bellamy’s arms hesitantly closing around her and a soft kiss to the top of her head. And when she finally lets go of that all-consuming fear and eases her grip to look at him, there’s wonder in his eyes and incredible tenderness, and his lips when she leans forward and kisses him are warm and welcoming, are a home instead of just a refuge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just went through this little collection and about half of the stories are one of the two discovering they love the other. There's an I love you in every other chapter. I'm a mess when it comes to this stupid ship.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a tumblr prompt from @lillebee: “ Maybe Clarkes reaction to Bellamy in the hazmat suit? (Of course he didn’t tell her beforehand and he takes waaay longer than he should?)”

 

Clarke hates the hazmat suits they’ve brought from Mount Weather with a passion.

She hates having to wear one of them, because they’re heavy and itchy and she’s plastered in sweat within seconds of wearing them. She hates how they’ve come to signify death, because every time someone needs to put one on, it means a lot more people are probably dead somewhere, or about to die from poisoned rain. She hates that they need them in the first place, that this is the reality of the planet they’ve all dreamed of for so long.

But most of all, she hates when it’s Bellamy putting one of them on. Hates that it happens too often, that he does it to go on dangerous mission as well as do things someone else could do just as well. She hates that, every time he puts on one of the olive-green atrocities, her heart slows down until her hands go cold and numb, and she knows the next few hours are going to be torture, wasted time spent pacing up and down and trying to be useful and failing to concentrate on any little thing.

And today, those hours have stretched on longer than they should.

8 hours, that’s how much oxygen is in the tanks attached to the suits. They’re not supposed to use more than 7, Raven has advised, to have a safety cushion in case something goes wrong or the suit starts to leak.

Bellamy is at 7 hours and 45 minutes and Clarke is losing her mind when the hangar door finally opens to reveal his hazmat-suited form.

Her pacing had just brought her to the far end of the hangar, and Clarke sets off towards the door at a run, only stopping herself from barrelling straight into Bellamy at the last second, whether to hug him or start pummelling him she’s not sure herself.

She grabs the hose near the door and starts dosing him down, standing close enough for the jet of water to hurt when it hits him and not caring one bit. Once she’s sure she got all the acidic rain off him, she yanks off his helmet, ignoring the few tiny leftover droplets of watered-down acid that still cling to it and burn into her hands when she fumbles with the clasp of the helmet.

Then Bellamy’s confused face becomes clearly visible, and Clarke starts yelling.

“What the hell were you thinking staying out this long?“

“I got a little lost, and just when I was about to turn back, I heard people calling out.” He seems unfazed by her anger, or at least he tries to look like it as he calmly pulls off the suit’s gloves. “Their shelter was about to give out, and I managed to stabilize it to make sure they can wait out the rain under it.”

“You almost used up all your air.” Clarke manages to get her voice somewhat under control so she sounds a little less shrill, but when she starts working the multitude of clasps and zippers keeping the suit closed tight, her hands are shaking. 

“The readings weren’t that high today, I didn’t even need to use the oxygen, just the air filter. So it wouldn’t have mattered how long I stayed.”

Clarke drops her hands to stare at him, incredulous at his answer. Of course, it should have occurred to her that the 8 hour time limit is only really relevant when it gets so bad out there that they need the extra oxygen - which, clearly, it wasn’t today. But returning before the 8 hours are up has become an unspoken rule that everyone adheres to - everyone except for Bellamy, it seems. 

“It wouldn’t have _mattered_?” she asks, voice breaking, but Bellamy either doesn’t understand the problem or he’s too focused on stepping out of the suit and hanging it up on its hook next to the door, leaving him in nothing but his boots, boxers, and a sweat-stained shirt which he promptly whips off. They’ve all gotten used to seeing people in their underwear as they change in and out of the suits in a hurry, and Clarke is much too agitated to take the opportunity to sneak a glance, the way she’s sometimes on these occasions allowed herself to do.

Not now, however. Now, there’s no room for such things. The only thing on her mind is the idea of Bellamy somewhere out there as his eight hours tick down, and her trapped in here with nothing but her fear.

“I would have thought you’d _died_!”

Her voice echoes in the empty hangar and this, finally, makes Bellamy freeze in his movements, the towel he’s been drying himself off with hanging limply in his hands as he properly takes her in: hair dishevelled from running her hands through it, hands gesturing wildly, eyes red and puffy from forcing down tears she didn’t want to shed, not while there was still a chance he’d return.

In the sudden silence, her voice seems to ring along the hangar’s metal walls, the desperation in them palpable, her harsh breathing doing its part to drive home her point.

Bellamy’s eyes widen, his mouth dropping open a little in surprise… and then his expression clears and she can see he finally understands what his absence has been doing to her. What it _always_ does to her.

But just as surely as she knows he’s understood, she knows it won’t change a thing. Bellamy will always put everyone else’s life before his own, and she will never not worry about losing him, and there’s nothing to be done about it no matter how much she yells.

“Swing by the medbay for some iodine tablets later,” she says instead, voice calm and matter-of-fact, then turns and walks away. She’s going to spend the next hours forgetting that it’s possible to feel like this, and then she’ll be right as rain – until the next time Bellamy puts on that damned suit and goes out again.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a prompt from @buffys-boss on tumblr: Clarke kissing Bellamy's chin dimple". This fic works well as a companion piece to the one in the previous chapter, btw, but it can be read alone as well.

 

It’s raining.

Of course, that in itself is nothing special, and no one except for Clarke takes note of it at all. But the thing is, Clarke hasn’t quite made the transition from thinking of rain as a deadly enemy to not thinking much of it at all. After all, they’re safe now that they’ve moved further North, finding refuge from the nuclear fallout with the Ice Nation. But this development is still recent enough that she has to actively remind herself of it, and more than once she starts awake from a nightmare and has to calm herself down with a mantra of “We’re safe, we’re safe, _we’re safe_.”

Because she still remembers when they weren’t; during those horrible months before Roan’s invitation when black rain and invisible radiation poisoning whittled down their courage along with their numbers.

She remembers how often they went out to find people still trapped out there, to try and help them to safety, and how Bellamy went out twice as often as anyone else. She remembers how much it terrified her, how much she hated watching him put on the suit, how much she tried not to think that this might be the last time she’d see his face every time he closed the visor.

She also remembers seeing the bodies of those he couldn’t get to in time, burned and blistered beneath recognition, and the expression on his face when they brought them in later: like he’d killed each and every one of them himself.

So, when she steps out onto the stone balcony of Roan’s palace to see fat raindrops spatter the muddy ground of the open courtyard beneath her, there’s a split second of panic when she wants to flee back inside and barricade herself from the threat. And _that_ is when Roan and Bellamy enter the courtyard below, returning from a friendly sparring session with smiles on their faces and rain soaking their hair.

Before she’s had time to turn to her trusted mantra, Clarke is already throwing herself down the stairs. She’s not sure what it is supposed to accomplish, because if that rain was poisonous, her throwing herself into its path wouldn’t help Bellamy one bit. But she’s acting on instinct, and rational thinking only returns when she’s already standing before them, stopping just short of throwing herself at him and making a complete spectacle of herself.

After all, it’s been less than three hours since they sat side by side at breakfast, so there’s really no need to act like they’ve been separated for months. Still, as she knows well enough, it only takes three seconds to lose someone forever, and this… this is the one someone she couldn’t bear to lose.

Luckily, Bellamy and Roan are so engrossed in their conversation that they don’t witness her frantic dash down the stairs, and only notice her when she skids to a stop before them.

Two heads turn to her in unison, take in her dishevelled appearance, flushed face and heavy breathing, and two faces darken with worry.

“Clarke? Are you alright?” Bellamy asks, at the same time as Roan says:

“What happened?”

And now she really does feel ridiculous because, well, _nothing_ happened. Nothing at all, except for her being paranoid and also, most likely, in love with her co-leader and best friend.

“Nothing, everything’s fine.” Judging by their faces, neither of the men believe her, despite the attempt at a breezy tone. “I just wanted to say Hi.”

“Right,” Bellamy says, clearly not understanding. Beside him, Roan rolls his eyes, then excuses himself with a jovial slap on Bellamy’s back and a knowing look at Clarke.

“Are you sure you’re alright? Did you have a nightmare?”

“It’s ten in the morning, Bellamy. I didn’t spend the day napping, you know. I had a ton of things to do.” She hopes he’ll ask further about those things, but her diversion tactic fails completely. Bellamy continues to look at her searchingly, trying to figure out what’s got her so rattled, and if he worries about her the way she worries about him, it’s just cruel to leave him guessing at this point.

“The rain freaked me out.” It doesn’t seem to be enough of an explanation, so she continues. “I forgot for a moment that it’s not poisonous up here. And then I saw you getting drenched and I…” She breaks off as her throat closes, and suddenly that feeling of panic is back and she needs to reassure herself that he’s really _here_ and _fine_ and that something as simple as rain won’t harm him.

She raises one trembling hand to his jaw, tracing the little rivulets of rainwater dripping from his hair and down his face. At her touch, his eyelashes flutter rapidly and his mouth falls open a little bit, half surprise and half something else, she thinks. The tiny movement causes water to cascade from his lower lip down his chin where a few drops remain, trembling, in the little dimple pressed in the middle of it.

And without really knowing what she’s doing, Clarke stretches up and kisses them away.

Which, it occurs to her almost immediately, is just a plain _weird_ thing to do.

It’s not the first weird thing she’s done around him lately, not by a long shot - there’s been burrowing into his side during conversations out on the balcony, under the guise of trying to stay warm of course. There’s been that time he even gave her his jacket for the same purpose and she actually buried her face in its upturned collar to breathe him in. (He didn’t see that, luckily.) There’s been falling asleep with her head on his shoulder and letting him tease her about being not a morning person until he managed to get a smile out of her after all. There’s been _giggling_ , for fuck’s sake.

In short, she’s been acting like a lovesick lunatic around him, and this renewed ridiculousness is just the tip of the iceberg.

But for all that Clarke wishes the ground would open up and swallow her, Bellamy doesn’t seem to mind. Sure, he looks a little surprised, and definitely confused, but not at all put out. He looks like…

She studies him; blinking stray raindrops off his long lashes, cheeks a little flushed - from the sparring session, no doubt - mouth closing as he swallows hard.

He looks like he’s waiting to see what she’ll do next.

Which means that this moment right here might make a hell of a difference on how the next few minutes of her life will play out, or perhaps more than minutes. Perhaps what started out as a day like any other has suddenly led up to a sort of tipping point - a point that, if she’s perfectly honest, has been a long time coming. Because if Clarke has been acting a little silly lately, Bellamy has been just as bad. She’s been in denial about this fact for quite some time, not sure if she was more afraid of being right about this or wrong. But it’s become pretty clear that Bellamy’s been in just about the same state she is in, and that sooner or later, something had to happen.

She just didn’t expect it to happen like this, while they’re being pummelled by frigid rain in the deserted courtyard of Roan’s castle. But then, on earth, nothing ever really happens the way she expects it to. Why should this be any different?

And of all the choices she’s had to make since landing on earth, choices about other people’s future and her own, the choice to stretch up once more and really, _properly_ kiss him, lips on lips and all, is the easiest by far.


	13. I Can Be Your Hero, Baby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This tiny little drabble was inspired by the prompt for the Bellarke flash fic contest: Hero. (Great prompt, btw.)

This has been the toughest fight of his life, Bellamy thinks wearily as he knocks on Clarke’s door, clutching a banged-up can of soup – his spoils of war. Well, not war exactly, but there were definitely war-like scenes playing out at the supermarket. Getting chicken soup on a Saturday night in the middle of a massive flu epidemic, it turns out, is no small feat. That he managed to do so is only because it’s for Clarke, who looked like death warmed over when he worriedly arrived at her place after three days of highly unusual radio silence – and if there’s one thing Bellamy can’t handle, it’s seeing his best friend (and nothing more!) suffer.

“You’re my hero!“

Clarke’s bright smile looks like it costs every bit of her feeble strength, and Bellamy suddenly feels like he could be a hero, somehow. One of the ancient Greek kings and warriors he used to read about as a kid, perhaps, or a knight of the Round Table. Who knows, maybe some other version of him is an actual hero, protecting lives and saving people in the multiverse Jasper and Monty keep ranting about when they’re high. Maybe he’ll be reborn as a hero in the future, in some kind of post-apocalyptic dystopia too awful to imagine…

“Are you coming in?“ Clarke croaks from the kitchen where she’s currently fighting a losing battle against the dented can of soup. With a fond smile, Bellamy confiscates the can opener and sends her off to the couch.

“I’ll take care of it. You just rest, okay?“

“Mhm,“ Clarke murmurs and shuffles off to the couch. “Like I said: My hero.“


End file.
